weighed
by withkissesfour
Summary: He's a different man. Ten II/Rose.


Pairing: TenII/Rose

Rating: PG (nothing really, singular mention of sex)

Length: 713 words

A/N: Originally a comment!fic for the Doctor/Rose fixation. Prompt was _I have a growing queue of things I know will make you laugh and I don't know where to put them._

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><p>She slyly snaps a picture of a man that bears a striking resemblance to an Ood - his spaghetti hanging down his chin as he laughs loudly with his dinner partner - and plans to show the Doctor when she gets home. But somewhere in between very human kisses and very human touches and bed-warm relaxation, she forgets. Or she doesn't think it's that funny anymore. Or something. And the hazy picture hangs on her phone and is buried in the depths of nostalgia, of spur of the moment photographs, of pixelated images of her favourite band.<p>

She sees the biggest bunch of bananas that ever actually existed just sitting in the supermarket. They're huge and ripe and the most yellowish yellow ever. She puts them in the passenger seat, and stares at them at the traffic lights, and then gets out to work. By the time she crawls back into the car, the bananas are browning and the car smells vaguely sickening. So she dumps them in the trashcan and tries not to fall asleep in the lift up to their apartment.

There's a t-shirt in this world's Henrik's with the most ridiculous pun. Something about Einstein and beer and to all else it's not that funny but she laughs and laughs and the whole store thinks she's mad and she's going red and she tells her friend she has to buy it now. And she sees him in the living room when she gets home, in his blue jeans and hoodie, reading Tolstoy. So she gives him a smile and half-runs into the bedroom, shoving the top towards the back of the cupboard. He wouldn't understand. He wouldn't get it. But it was funny.

And then it's everything. Everything's funny. She makes a fool of herself in the market and she's blushing and waiting for his high-pitched cackly type thing that she loves, but he's inspecting a watermelon. She sees a chip shaped like Elvis. (No. Seriously. The hair and everything), but it's crushed in her pocket as she runs for the taxi. And then a thought occurs to her as she's buying chips and she goes to ask him about that ten quid he still owes her but the words don't quite leave her mouth. And her mother and father have a "fight". And Tony chases after the dog. And her highlights are growing out again. And he's wearing sandals.

And suddenly they're all bundled up inside her wardrobe and her bin and her phone and her mind. And she feels like all the hilarious things are closing in on her. Suffocating her. And she doesn't know what to do with them. Because she can't tell him.

So it becomes all the things she knows will make him cry. Things she'll never verbalise. Like wondering why he doesn't wear a suit anymore. Or that sometimes it hurts just to look at him. Or wondering if he'll understand the in-jokes and the bananas and the sandals and Tony. Whether he'll remember incessantly teasing her about the brunette growing back into her hair and coaxing the TARDIS to confiscate her hair dye. Or his solemn oath only to wear sandals when in Ancient Rome. Whether he'll laugh. Coz he's a different man.

She hides. And their life is ridiculously boring for a little while. And it's all smiles and late night television and sex and work and parents and shopping and the rent. And she gives into the overwhelming fear that if she tries, he won't laugh. He won't smile. He won't love her for it. She won't love him anymore.

Until one day, when he's sitting across her at the breakfast bench, and his hair's sticking up at all ends and his pajama pants have small pinstripes on them and he's looking at her like he used to, like he always has, and pouring too much milk into his cereal. And he's fuming because it's gonna get really soggy and she pats his hand and makes some offhanded joke about cows and getting old and that time in the dairy farm and then he's laughing. Throwing his head back, and rocking precariously in his chair and...it wasn't really that funny.

But she listens to that laugh, and months of tension slide off her shoulders and mountains of jokes are heaved off her chest and onto the table and she can't breath she's so happy.


End file.
